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Facing up to ecological crisis: a psychosocial perspective from climate

psychology Nadine Andrews & Paul Hoggett

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Introduction to climate psychology

Facing the facts of climate change and ecological crisis involves encountering powerful

feelings such as loss, guilt, anxiety, shame and despair that can be difficult to bear. How we

deal with these feelings shapes how we respond to the crisis and is critical in determining

whether these responses are ultimately adaptive or maladaptive. Adaptive responses support

psychological adjustment to the emerging new realities and stimulate appropriate and

proportional action (Crompton & Kasser 2009). Maladaptive responses work against this in

some way.

In recent years the psychological dimensions of climate change have received greater

attention in climate science, policy and in the media, with growing acceptance and

appreciation of the contribution that these perspectives can make in enriching our

understanding of both the causes and the impacts of climate change. The field has advanced

from arguing that psychology has an important contribution to make (American Psychological

Association 2009), complaining that the contributions and insights are not widely accepted or

applied (Swim et al. 2011), restating the argument in mainstream scientific publications

(Clayton et al. 2015), to a position of greater influence over the inclusion of psychology in

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. For example, the American

Psychological Association has achieved IPCC observer organisation status and some leading

psychologists have been selected as authors for the Special Report on 1.5 degrees and for the

main sixth assessment report. The significance of this development should not be understated,

but nonetheless the role that psychology is currently playing still barely scratches the surface

of its potential. There is much more that psychology - though not necessarily mainstream

psychology – can offer. This claim brings us to the purpose of this chapter: making the case

for the contribution of what we term ‘climate psychology’. This approach has emerged in

recent years occupying a space left under-explored by mainstream psychology and climate

science: the role of the non-rational and unconscious in human cognition and decision-

making. These aspects are not entirely ignored by the mainstream of course; constructs like

‘denial’ are popularly used to explain lack of engagement and adaptive action, but a deeper

more nuanced discussion is generally absent in the literature. For example, denial (in the

context we mean here) features just once in the Working Group II1 contribution to IPCC’s

1IPCCWorkingGroupIIreportisonimpacts,adaptationandvulnerability

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Fifth Assessment Report: “If a perceived high risk is combined with a perceived low adaptive

capacity, the response is fatalism, denial, and wishful thinking” (IPCC 2014b, 204). Its single

appearance in the Working Group III2 report is slightly more elaborated: “There is evidence

of cognitive dissonance and strategic behaviour in both mitigation and adaptation. Denial

mechanisms that overrate the costs of changing lifestyles, blame others, and that cast doubt on

the effectiveness of individual action or the soundness of scientific knowledge are well

documented, as is the concerted effort by opponents of climate action to seed and amplify

those doubts” (IPCC 2014a, 300). Neither of these entries explains the psycho-social

processes involved, nor how to address them.

The reason why mainstream psychology struggles to account for the complexities of human

behaviour is largely due to its methodological conventions. Studies often split off individual

behaviour from its social context and focus on a single or a small number of factors. It is

largely quantitative, relying on self-report survey-based methods or controlled laboratory

studies which usually use students as subjects. Climate psychology on the other hand uses

qualitative methods and proceeds from the premise that when it comes to understanding

humans it is precisely what can’t be counted that really counts. It draws upon a variety of

sources that have been neglected by mainstream psychology including psychoanalysis,

Jungian psychology, ecopsychology, chaos theory, continental philosophy, ecolinguistics and

social theory. From such sources we glimpse some of the complexity and mystery of the

human. The raw passions that often dominate our thoughts and behaviours; the internal

conflicts and competing voices that characterise our internal lives and give colour to our

different senses of self; the effect of systems of domination on the way we think and feel

about ourselves. Viewed from this perspective it is possible to see how our attempts to defend

ourselves against the feelings aroused by worsening climate change are mediated by deep-

seated assumptions about ourselves and society. For example, a powerful sense of entitlement

may help us to shrug off guilt and shame, or a touching faith in progress can mitigate anxiety

and induce complacency. Typically we will feel torn between different impulses, to face and

avoid reality, between regret and the desire to make amends versus cynicism and

hopelessness, between what is convenient for us and what is necessary for the common good.

2IPCCWorkingGroupIIIreportisonmitigation

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Climate psychology attempts to offer a psycho-social perspective, one that can illuminate the

complex two-way interactions between the personal and the political, the psychological and

the social. It is concerned with understanding how our collective paralysis plays out in both

our individual lives and in our culture.

The contribution of climate psychology

Climate psychology seeks to further our understanding of:

• collectivelyorganisedfeelingssuchasloss,despair,panicandguiltevokedinindividuals,

communities,nationsandregionsbyclimatechangeandenvironmentaldestruction;

• defencesandotherstrategiesusedtocopewiththepsychologicalthreatbroughtonby

climatechangeandecologicalcrisis,suchasdenialandrationalisation,thathelpusavoid

facingdifficultfeelings,andhowsuchthreatresponsesmanifestinthelivesofindividuals,

families,groupsandinstitutions;

• culturalworldviewsandpractices(e.g.faithinprogress;senseofprivilegeandentitlement;

materialismandconsumerism;short-termism)thatareecologicallydamagingandinhibit

effectivechange;

• conflicts,dilemmasandparadoxesthatindividualsandgroupsfaceinnegotiatingchange

withfamily,friends,neighboursandcolleagues;

• psychologicalresourcesthatsupportchange:resilience,courage,radicalhope,andnew

formsofimagination.

Climate psychology aims to:

• promotecreativeapproachestoengagingwithclimatechangeandthinkinginarealistic

wayaboutsomethingwhoseimplicationsareunthinkable;

• contributetochangesatthepersonal,community,culturalandpoliticallevels;

• supportactivists,scientistsandpolicymakersseekingtobringaboutchange;

• buildpsychologicalresiliencetothedestructiveimpactsofclimatechange,boththose

alreadybeingexperiencedandthosethatareanticipated,sothatpeoplecanprepareand

adaptasbesttheycan,inwaysthatgobeyondindividualself-protectiontoservethe

greaterwhole.

We now discuss each of these areas of understanding in turn, beginning with collectively

organised feelings.

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Collectively organised feelings

When we think of emotions we typically think of them as ‘belonging’ to the individual

somehow. But why should emotion be individualised in this way? After all, we don’t see

language and meaning as private to the individual. A psycho-social perspective insists that

emotion is as much a public as a private phenomenon, that powerful collective feelings can be

provoked by social change and can also contribute to social change (Hoggett 2009). In the last

couple of decades sociologists have become increasingly interested in the collective

organisation of feelings (Goodwin, Jasper and Poletta 2001; Gould 2009) and several ways of

thinking about this have emerged. First there is the idea that a particular constellation of

feelings may characterise a historical era perhaps spanning decades. Following the cultural

historian Raymond Williams this is often referred to as a ‘structure of feeling’ (Williams

1977). An example would be the ressentiment (a cocktail of grievance, envy and anger) that

characterised much of German society in the 1920s and 1930s after the humiliation of the

Treaty of Versailles which ended the First World War (Coser 1961). Secondly there is the

idea of ‘abiding affects’ (Jasper 1998), feelings which endure over shorter timescales and may

be specific to particular social groups such as social classes, minorities, and so on. A good

example is provided by Debbie Gould in her study of the gay and lesbian community’s

response to the AIDs crisis in the USA, the powerful role of shame in demobilising protest

and of ‘gay pride’ in sustaining and advancing it. Last but not least, contagious collective

feelings such as panic may find expression in society in sudden and fleeting ways. The origins

of crowd psychology lay in the study of such phenomena (Le Bon 1896), feelings which

today are increasingly amplified by social media.

Emotion and affect

With regard to climate change, much has already been written on the powerful feelings

evoked by it including grief (Randall 2009; Head 2016), melancholia (Lertzman 2015), fear

and terror (Doppelt 2016). Of course many of these feelings are only aroused once someone

becomes aware of climate change, because it is in the nature of an emotion that it has a

conscious object (climate change) and meanings (risk, loss) attached to it. But there is another

kind of feeling, commonly referred to as an ‘affect’, which operates at a much less conscious

level. Anxiety (the core ingredient of stress) is a classic example: typically when we are

anxious our feeling flits from one thing to another, it has no secure object to attach itself to. It

is also very visceral, felt primarily through the body rather than through cognition. This

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distinction is important because it enables us to understand how people, such as those in

denial, may not be ‘climate aware’ and yet nevertheless affected by powerful feelings

provoked by climate change.

Containing our feelings

The distinction between emotion and affect is helpful for another reason. Generally speaking

the more an emotion can be made conscious and therefore subject to reflection the more it can

be contained. ‘Containment’ refers to the extent to which an experience can be digested and

worked through or, put another way, the extent to which a feeling can be transformed into an

emotion as opposed to remaining as an affect. The psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion (1962) likened

the mind to a system for digesting experience. If an experience can be contained, even a

difficult one, it will provide food for thought (and therefore for growth and development). But

if it can’t be contained then, like undigestible food, it gets stuck in the system or has to be

expelled. So if we can’t contain feelings of sadness or terror they will either get stuck in our

system (paralysing despair) or we will get rid of them by projecting them into others (we find

a substitute object, the Other, for our fear) or through blind forms of action (because action

can itself be a way of getting rid of uncontainable feelings). Simply put, are we able to use

our feelings or do they use us? Are we able to regulate them and use them creatively or are we

going to be at their mercy? Crucially, this brings us on to the theme of the next section: the

way we use coping and defence mechanisms when faced with the difficult-to-contain feelings

aroused by climate change.

Coping with psychological threat

Ecological crisis: when the environment of a species or population changes in a way that destabilises its continued survival (Isildar 2012)

We are without doubt in a situation of crisis. Destabilisation of planetary cycles and processes

that regulate Earth’s life support systems poses profound psychological threat. For example,

to our sense of safety, and to the integrity and stability of self-identity, for it disrupts who we

may think we are - as human beings separate and superior to other species with mastery over

nature and control over our own lives. In challenging the morality of our destructive

behaviours, our complicity and inadequate responses, it also poses a threat to self-esteem,

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denting our confidence in our own worth and our abilities. Ecological crisis also threatens our

life plans, ideas of progress and internalised expectations of the future. It is abundantly clear

that how we have lived until now cannot remain the same for much longer - many aspects of

our lives will have to fundamentally change in order to mitigate and/or adapt to the impacts of

destabilised natural systems (Crompton & Kasser 2009; Lertzman 2015; Weintrobe 2013).

Ultimately ecological crisis threatens our continued existence as a species.

When encountering a perceived threat, the disequilibrium caused creates stress, which is both

physiological and psychological. The human tendency is to attempt to alleviate stress and

decrease negative emotions through defence mechanisms and coping strategies in order to

return to baseline functioning as soon as possible. In psychology literature the terms ‘defence’

and ‘coping’ are often used interchangeably. Whilst there is an argument for a distinction

between them, namely that defence mechanisms are unconscious and unintentional and

coping strategies are conscious and intentional (Cramer 1998), in lived experience threat

responses are likely to involve both conscious and unconscious dimensions. The processes

involved are also dynamic: there is possibility for movement of information back and forth

between unconscious and conscious parts of the mind through processes of suppression and

awareness.

Types of responses

There are different ways of categorising defence and coping responses. For example, by

classifying into avoidant and approach types. Avoidant coping is a defensive form of

regulation, involving denial, distortion, disengagement, and - as we introduced at the start of

this chapter - suppression of negative emotions. Approach coping has three predominant

forms: active coping, which is direct action to deal with stressful situations; acceptance,

which is cognitive and emotional acknowledgement of stressful realities; and cognitive

reinterpretation, which involves learning or positive reframing (Weinstein, Brown and Ryan

2009). Approach coping is generally considered adaptive because effort is directed towards

containing the anxiety-evoking situation and overcoming the stress associated with it,

whereas avoidant coping, whilst it may relieve stress in the short-term, if prolonged or

situationally inappropriate is likely to become maladaptive and serve pathological ends. These

ends manifest at the individual level: avoidant coping has been found to be associated with

poorer health (Weinstein and Ryan 2011). But there are also ecological implications: coping

responses either support psychological adjustment to the emerging new realities and stimulate

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appropriate and proportional action, or they work against this in some way, and serve to

protect us from having to make radical changes or take significant action.

We can also make a distinction between proactive and reactive coping. Proactive coping, also

known as anticipatory adaptation or psychological preparedness, is undertaken in anticipation

of an event, whereas reactive coping occurs after. The two types merge when responses are

made to an event in order to both diminish its impact and prevent its re-occurrence (American

Psychological Association 2009). Coping responses can be cognitive, affective or behavioural

- or a mix of these.

Ecologically adaptive or maladaptive

The literature on the psychological dimensions of climate change and environmental

behaviour identifies various defences and coping responses, which can be categorised as

follows.

Ecologically maladaptive responses

• Denialordisavowalofecologicalcrisis(e.g.rejecting,deflecting,ignoring)

• Distortionoffacts(e.g.reducingsizeofthreat,puttingthreatintothefuture)

• Shiftingresponsibility(e.g.blame-shifting,denialofguilt,splitting,projection)

• Avoidanceofdifficultemotions(e.g.suppression,rationalisation,escapism,numbing,

pleasure-seeking)

• Diversionaryactivity(e.g.minorbehaviourchangeordisplacedcommitment)

• Non-action(e.g.resignation,passivity,lazycatastrophism)

• Self-deception(e.g.wishful/magicalthinking,unrealisticoptimism)

• Activecatastrophismandself-destructiveacts

• Self-enhancementvaluesorientation(e.g.materialisticbehaviourtoenhanceself-esteem,

orself-protectiontoenhancesenseofsecurityandbeingincontrol)

Ecologically adaptive responses

• Seekinginformation,engagementwithfactsaboutecologicalcrisis

• Engagingwithandregulatingassociatedfeelings(e.g.throughmindfulness)

• Compassion,self-transcendencevaluesorientation(careforhumanandnon-humanothers)

• Connectingwithnature

• Consideredreflectionondeath,impermanence,humanfrailtyandlimitations

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• Collaborativeproblem-solving

The psycho-social nature of threat responses

Threat responses are not isolated psychological processes: they are psycho-social

phenomenon, culturally sanctioned and maintained by social norms and structures (Randall

2013; Crompton & Kasser 2009). As Lertzman (2015, 3) explains, “we produce, share and

co-construct our unconscious negotiations of highly charged issues through our conversations,

stories, advertising, intimate dialogues and public media discourses”. Threat responses

interact with other psycho-social factors in complex ways to influence cognition and

behaviour (Andrews 2017). Understanding these processes and their dynamics and effects is

critical for designing interventions to subvert maladaptive responses to ecological crisis, at

individual and group levels. Becoming aware of maladaptive responses as they arise within us

offers the possibility of choosing a different response. We discuss this further in the section

on Psychological resources.

Cultural worldviews and practices

Climate psychology is interested in the beliefs, values, assumptions and presuppositions that

are held at the collective level of human culture (cultural worldviews), and in the social

practices that proceed from them. A cultural worldview serves to convey a sense of living in a

world of order and meaning, giving purpose and a sense of meaning to life (Solomon et al

2004). The worldview that is dominant in a society pervades all aspects of life, and constitutes

the broader contextual forces influencing each individual’s values, identities, threat responses

and conceptual systems. But the influence of a worldview often goes unnoticed by the

individual, its assumptions unchallenged (Griffin 1995). This is because with repeated and

ubiquitous exposure to its discourse, the worldview becomes internalised and is no longer

obvious. It is taken for granted as something natural, rather than as something that we created

and can therefore change. Climate psychology is concerned with making these assumptions

visible so that they can be examined.

Ecologically damaging beliefs and assumptions

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In western industrialised cultures there are a number of beliefs and assumptions that we

contend drive ecologically damaging practices and inhibit effective change.

• Theprojectofmodernityaimstoachievehumanself-determinationandfreedomthrougha

struggleagainstthelimitsimposedbynature

• Natureisawildmalevolentforcethatthreatenscivilisedlife

• Humansareentitledtodominateandexploitthenaturalworldforourownends-itexists

forouruse

• Humansaredifferentfromandsuperiortonature,andwecanfreeourselvesfromthelimits

ofnaturethroughouringenuity

• Wecancontrolnatureandharnessitsforcesthroughtechnoscience

• Advancementoftechnoscience,industrialisationandeconomicdevelopment(achieved

throughafreemarketeconomy)arevitalforhumanprogressi.e.forimprovingthehuman

condition

• Accumulationofmaterialwealthandconsumergoodsistheprimarymeasureofsuccess,

statusandworth

• Problemscreatedbytheabove(e.g.humanpovertyandinequality,overwhelmofbiosphere

cyclesandprocesses)canbesolvedbydoingmoreofthesame(e.g.techno-fixingourway

outofclimatecrisis)

Disconnection and disregulation

As Schwarz’s model of self-regulation of individual health explains, disconnectioninfeedback

makes it more difficult for a system to self-regulate (Shapiro & Schwartz 1999):

Disattentionàdisconnectionàdisregulationàdisorderàdisease

Throughrepeatedlynotattendingtoanemotional,physicalbodyorinterpersonalcue,the

individualbecomeshabituatedtothestimulussoitisnolongeraccessibletoawareness,and

disconnectioninfeedbackoccurs.The model can be applied to the human relationship with the

natural world. Disconnection from the natural world and denial of natural limits reduces our

ability to regulate human activity within planetary boundaries: the Earth’s feedback signals

are ignored, misinterpreted or simply not noticed. Symbiosis becomes overexploitation,

ingenuity turns into hubris, and human interests always win out to the detriment of other

species.

Wild and malevolent nature

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The belief that humans are different from nature is closely associated to a conceptualisation of

nature as wild and uncontrollable, a malevolent force that needs to be fought against (Rust

2008). This perception manifests in language, for example with metaphors that equate nature

with evil, projecting human vices onto the natural world. As the moral philosopher Mary

Midgley (2003) explains, such projection not only absolves a person or society from

destroying nature but also fulfils another psychological purpose: by killing the personification

they have killed the vice, “they are symbolically destroying their own wildness” (166). A

perception of malevolence is also conveyed in the phrase ‘fighting climate change’ where the

climate system is personified as an active wilful enemy with intent to harm (Andrews 2016).

It is to such a malevolent entity that the title of Lovelock’s book ‘The revenge of Gaia’ speaks

(Macy 1993). Our culture tames wildness and instils order through domestication of plants,

animals and people (Totton 2011; Midgley 2003). These efforts give the impression of control

over nature, and by extension the illusion that we can transcend its limits.

Mortality threat, control and self-protection

The ultimate natural limit that we may seek to transcend is death. We observed earlier that

climate and ecological crisis poses existential threat. Unless the sense of self as part of nature

is strong, existential threat tends to motivate people to enhance their self-esteem by

prioritising self-enhancement values and pursuing extrinsic goals of material wealth and

success (Fritsche and Häfner 2012; Sheldon and Kasser 2008), thus increasing consumerism

and consumption and driving further depletion of nature’s resources in a hellish self-

reinforcing feedback loop. But climate change not only confronts us with our reality as mortal

beings, it also reminds us that we are at the mercy of much more powerful forces. In this way

it punctures hubristic illusions of control, destabilising our sense of who we think we are as

human beings separate and superior to nature, and capable of controlling nature through our

inventions in technoscience. The facts of ecological crisis are so resisted because they

confront us with the reality that this deeply entrenched and longstanding cultural worldview is

no longer tenable. As Naomi Klein (2014) says, climate change is a crisis of civilisation: a

crisis of story.

One response to this crisis of story that we can see becoming stronger at both group and

nation state level is self-protection. Self-protection values and isolationist tendencies have

erupted to the surface creating political chaos, for example with the presidency of Donald

Trump in the USA and the vote by Britain to leave the European Union. Self-protection is

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anxiety-based, and therefore always has a paranoid tinge, it is pursued to cope with situations

of uncertainty (Schwarz et al. 2012) and it can easily lead to physical violence.

Entitlement, resentment and social conflict

The rise of technoscience can be dated back to the mid-1800s at the end of the Industrial

Revolution (White 1967). This union between science and technology enabled exploitation of

nature on an unprecedented scale, way beyond that of the Scientific Revolution in the

preceding centuries. A sense of entitlement to exploit nature helps shrug off any guilt that

may be felt about the ecological destruction and disruption caused by overexploitation and

overconsumption of nature’s resources.

Gregory Bateson (1982) observes that the Industrial Revolution came with an “enormous

increase of scientific arrogance” (311). Arrogance, superiority, exploitativeness and

entitlement are dimensions of narcissism (Weintrobe 2004; Frantz et al. 2005), which can

apply to societies and organisations as much as to individuals. With the rise of consumer

culture, narcissism has become more prevalent in society (Lasch 1979; Kanner and Gomes

1995). Narcissism has been found to be an inhibitor of nature connectedness and a major

barrier to resolving environmental problems (Frantz et al. 2005).

There are other ways in which a sense of entitlement can inhibit effective climate action. The

loss of something to which we feel entitled, such as certain levels of material wealth and

living standards, can trigger perceptions of injustice and feelings of resentment towards

‘liberals’ who urge restraint and living within our ecological means. Such grievances

increasingly fuel support for Trump and other populist climate deniers, including Brexit

supporting MPS such as Boris Johnson and Owen Paterson.

A much greater danger is now appearing on the horizon. It is highly likely that we are about

to enter an era of ‘ecological austerity’ in which the effects of climate change and other

ecological disasters lead to an inexorable rise in food prices, the mass displacement of peoples

and the end of economic growth as conventionally defined. No longer ‘finger-wagging

liberals’ but the earth itself will force restraint upon the entitled citizens of the West. The risk

is that this fuels a new era of ressentiment, akin to that which underlay the rise of the far right

in Europe in the inter-war period. When governments fail to adequately protect against or

respond to climate change impacts, this may lead to loss of faith and trust in governments and

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other civil institutions, resulting in backlash. Perceptions of inequalities or disparities in the

impacts of climate change may trigger social unrest, intergroup conflict and violence

(Doherty and Clayton 2011).

Trapped in ideology

The idea that technoscience can solve problems created by technoscience has been termed an

‘ideological pathology’ and a progress trap (Wright 2004). This trap also applies to

capitalism, which sees the answer to climate crisis as even more capitalism, turning nature

and even carbon emissions into commodities. Organisational studies scholars Christopher

Wright and Daniel Nyberg (2015) call this process ‘creative self-destruction’ whereby global

capitalism devises ever more ingenious ways to exploit and consume the earth’s resources and

life support systems. As Jared Diamond (2005) discovered in his work on the collapse of

civilisations, when faced with a crisis they do not understand, civilisations tend to reinforce

the very routines that put them into that crisis, through force of habit rather than by reason. In

times of disruptive change, these routines become a trap that becomes deeper and harder to

get out of with the short-termist tendencies of our political and economic systems.

The (in)coherence of worldviews

Belief systems are not necessarily coherent and can contain contradictory views. For example,

at the same time as believing that human ingenuity will triumph through technoscience, with

climate change denial there is also a rejection of the authority of science (Hamilton 2010).

Whilst the belief in human separation from nature underpins technoscience, it is science that

also shows humans to be firmly connected with the living world, for example with Darwin’s

theory of evolution, and more recently with comparison of the genomes of humans with other

species and the discovery that the human body comprises ten times as many microbial cells as

human cells. However, the beliefs and assumptions we have discussed above predominate,

and together they form a particularly environmentally toxic worldview.

Conflicts, dilemmas and paradoxes

All of us in the West are thoroughly implicated in the climate change crisis. In modern,

technologically saturated societies we are completely dependent on the systems which bring

energy to our kitchens and food to our shops, transport us to work, dispose of our waste, and

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so on. Under neoliberal capitalism, markets infiltrate everything, getting right underneath our

skin, converting more and more aspects of life into calculation and exchange. And with

globalisation the middle classes find their friends, colleagues and loved ones increasingly

spread across the world. To ‘drop out’ of this system is virtually impossible and the vast

majority of us, even those very ‘climate aware’, have to act for the best when faced with a

myriad daily choices regarding how we travel, eat, communicate, socialise, love, relax and

work. We also live in an increasingly plural society in which thousands of different voices

clamour for our attention, drawing upon our different identities. Annie, an older, Welsh

nationalist, conservationist, rugby-loving, Presbyterian, middle class, socialist, mother of

three will be pulled this way and that by the many moral claims she feels are made upon her

by all the different communities that she belongs to. According to the political philosopher

Bonnie Honig, today we in the West live in ‘dilemmatic space’ in which there is often no

obvious right thing to do (Honig 1996).

Take the dilemma of ‘love miles’, for example. Say Annie’s only daughter now lives in

Australia and is the mother of Annie’s only two grandchildren. No matter how ‘climate

aware’ Annie might be, no matter how conscious of the carbon emissions incurred by flying

to the other side of the world, the ‘pull’ for her to go and see her family will be enormous.

Whichever choice she makes she will be haunted by the loss and guilt incurred by the ‘path

not chosen’, something the moral philosopher Bernard Williams referred to as ‘the remainder’

(Williams 1981).

A psycho-social perspective

Drawing attention to the conflicts and dilemmas that we all face as ethical beings in modern

societies also enables us to understand something about what it means to be human.

Rationalist models of the person that still dominate most academic psychology tend to adhere

to a unitary view of the human subject. In contrast, a psycho-social perspective understands

the human subject as always in tension, between conflicting needs, and between competing

moral claims. It follows that, far from there being a unitary self which ‘acts’ and ‘chooses’,

each of us is torn between a number of competing selves and identities, for example, between

a complacent and entitled self on the one hand and a concerned and loving self on the other.

And the problem for us all is that it is not at all easy no know which part of us is being

complacent and entitled, and when. For example, if Annie decides not to go to Australia, is

this because her concerned and loving self has triumphed or is there something cold and

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unfeeling about her decision? And by not going, is it possible that her entitled self has

actually triumphed, one which views her as an exceptionally moral person, perhaps saintly in

her forbearance of ordinary pleasures?

To reiterate the point made by Bernard Williams, in a complex, plural society there is often no

obviously right thing to do; all we can do is ‘act of the best’ as he puts it, knowing that we

might be wrong but not allowing knowledge of our fallibility to undermine our capacity to act

in what we feel is the right and ethical way. Understanding the person in all their complexity

provides us with a sound platform for engaging with others in conversations about climate

and ecological crisis.

Knowing that we are no different to the other we seek to influence and change puts us in a

more humble position from which to engage, and this in turn lessens the likelihood that the

other will become defensive and increases the likelihood that we might both engage in a

richer conversation about our predicament.

Psychological resources

Climate change constitutes a profound psychological challenge to all of us. It does this in two

ways. First, awareness of climate change itself, its already occurring impact and the severe

threat it poses to our collective future, can and often does feel quite overwhelming, and this is

as true for the ordinary person in the street as it is for a climate scientist (Hoggett and Randall

2018). Secondly, the actual impacts of climate change, including drought, wildfires, floods

and storms and rising sea levels, often challenge both our physical and psychological

wellbeing. Climate change threatens us with experiences that are difficult to contain and

unless we build up our resilience these will be potentially traumatic.

Resilience

Much of the research on resilience derives from studies of families living in extreme poverty

and social deprivation. These are sometimes referred to as ‘traumatogenic environments’

because the multiple stressors (poverty, drugs and alcohol, violence, social breakdown)

combine to create an environment which constantly overwhelms peoples’ psychological

resources. This research has now become incorporated into fields including development

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studies, social policy, genetics, health, education and disaster studies (Mohaupt 2008; Luthar

et al. 2000).

One of the most significant concerns is that there is currently no single definition of

resilience. One commonly used definition (Luthar et al. 2000: 10) is that resilience is a

“dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant

adversity”. There must have been exposure to significant threat or severe adversity and the

achievement of positive adaptation, despite major assaults on the developmental processes.

But debate, for instance, surrounds the idea of what constitutes ‘positive adaptation’ and

therefore whether in some circumstances resilience might include aggressive, deviant and

what some might see as ‘anti-social’ behaviour.

Mentalisation

The literature on trauma, stress and coping highlights the personal resources crucial to human

adaptation. A vast and varied body of literature on child development, adult mental health and

personal self-help is dedicated to cultivating psychological resources to build resilience and

support personal change. Psychotherapies, counselling, mindfulness practice - there are many

ways we can intervene to help ourselves and others. Much of this knowledge can be usefully

drawn upon to help us engage in a productive way with the conflicts, dilemmas, threats and

impacts of ecological crisis.

Core to these approaches is the capacity for ‘mentalisation’ – bringing what was operating in

the dark into the light where it is visible and can be examined, reflected upon, contained and

regulated (Fonagy et al. 2002). In relation to trauma this involves the ability to get a distance

from the disturbing experience without disassociating from it, and this can be enhanced by

being able to deploy perspective: seeing things in a different way and from another point of

view. The role of a trusted other – an individual, family or group – can be crucial in this

process, and this shows us is that resilience is as much a relational phenomenon as it is

something ‘belonging’ to the individual.

Transformational resilience

Thinking about resilience as a property of a social system takes us to the concept of

‘transformational resilience’ (Doppelt 2016), which can be applied to both individuals and

communities in terms of their capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Here,

17

adversity is used as a catalyst for finding new meaning and direction in life, and changes are

made that increase individual and community wellbeing above previous levels (Doppelt

2016). This is a particularly powerful way of thinking about how to deal with traumatic

experiences and is already being used in northern Californian communities affected by

wildfires.

Radical hope

Despair and powerlessness go together. If people feel that they have some power in a

situation they are less likely to feel despair. Ultimately despair comes from the feeling that

you simply don’t have the resources (e.g. the determination, the courage, the knowledge, the

skill, the support from others) to do anything about the destruction all around you. Despair is

a form of inner defeat. But strangely enough, hopelessness does not necessarily lead to

despair - it can be liberating.

The social critic Christopher Lasch once said that the worst is what the hopeful are always

prepared for. The hope that comes from being able to face the worst is an enduring hope

because it is not built upon a scaffolding of illusion and wishful thinking. It is defiant and

courageous and it refuses to capitulate to what might seem like hopeless odds. “Active hope is

something we do rather than have”, so say Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone in their book

Active Hope, and this is exactly what the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci meant by

‘optimism of the will’, that resilient ‘keeping on going on’. It is also the kind of hope

canvassed by John Foster in the concluding chapter of this book, where he links its possibility

for us in present conditions to a renewed capacity to recognise our situation as tragic – a

recognition which, as Nietzsche knew, is actually the reverse of fatalism.

We can’t know what the future holds. When people begin to emerge from the ruins of a life,

they can see painfully what has been lost, but ahead is only an uncharted sea. But move on

they do, and some kind of elemental confidence about life is slowly restored. In his book

Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation Jonathan Lear depicts a whole

community, the Crow Indian in late nineteenth-century North America, coming to terms with

the tragic destruction of a way of life and imagining a new future for themselves. Lear calls

this ‘radical hope’: hope is directed towards a “future goodness of the world that transcends

the current ability to understand what it is” (2006, 103). Radical hope is not just about

18

determination and courage; it is also about love and a re-finding of all that is benign in the

world.

Conclusion

Climate psychology aims to gain insight into the conundrum of why ecologically maladaptive

behaviours persist in the face of compelling evidence that these behaviours are dangerous to

life. With a focus on the role of the non-rational and unconscious in human cognition and

decision-making, and an appreciation of the fundamental entanglement of psychological

processes with social and contextual forces, climate psychology brings perspectives often

overlooked by mainstream psychology. In this chapter we have introduced some core ideas:

the role of emotions and how feelings are both personally felt and collectively organised; that

ecological and climate crisis poses psychological threat and ways of coping can be adaptive or

maladaptive; that there are cultural beliefs and assumptions that drive ecologically damaging

practices and inhibit effective change; and that conflicts, dilemmas and paradoxes are inherent

to being human. Finally we discussed psychological resources that can help build resilience

and support positive change at individual, community and societal levels.

We are embedded in a cultural worldview that is fundamentally pathological, and it affects all

of us. Acknowledging the conflicts and dilemmas that we all face as ethical beings in modern

societies enables us to understand something about what it means to be human. None of us are

completely right or completely wrong in the way we are responding, and the humility such a

realisation engenders may help us relate to one another with more compassion and

forgiveness.

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